Monthly Archives: July 2014

Have you ever set a lofty goal – maybe it seemed nearly impossible – yet, when you met it you found yourself already thinking about even loftier goals? How can that be? What does that say about that earlier goal? How can you keep setting higher and higher goals? Won’t you burn out?

Goku and the other Dragon Ball warriors do this sort of goal setting all the time. Let’s see how they handle it.

Vegeta and Nappa couldn’t believe Goku’s power reading was over 9000.

That was season one.

Soon, Goku – and Vegeta himself – are dealing with much, much higher power levels. Numbers like a hundred thousand would have been previously unimaginable. Yet, several seasons later they’re dealing with power levels in the hundreds of millions.

So, how does this work?

Basically: by the time you reach a goal, you’ve grown and changed and have different priorities.

Remember high school? Just passing exams was at the top of most people’s minds. However, by the final year you’re thinking about university and jobs and all sorts of stuff in the big wide world you couldn’t have fathomed a year or two before.

By the time we reach a goal, we’re not the same person we were when we set that goal.

By the time we reach a goal, we’re not the same person we were when we set that goal. On the way to our goal we’ve grown and learned and changed. The person we are by the time we get there has higher goals in mind. And once we reach them, we’ll set other goals. And so it continues.

And that’s why we keep setting new goals, but don’t necessarily burn out.

It also doesn’t lessen the importance of the earlier goals. Setting and reaching that earlier goal was important. That’s how you got here, how you’re able to set a higher goal.

Just like when Goku trains in the hyberbolic time chamber, or when a pair of warriors combine their powers in a Fusion Dance, the result is a different, more powerful person.

But they don’t stop there. There’s always some bigger challenge out there. They’re always striving higher. And so can we.

So, when you find yourself wondering about goals you’ve set, just think: who was I then? Who am I now? What goals can I set now thanks to setting and moving towards that goal back then?

Open Chat

When have you neared or reached a goal only to realise you had bigger fish to fry? What’s something that’s been your hyberbolic time chamber – something that changed you rapidly and allowed you to meet your goal and set new ones? Let us know in the comments below.

I’ll be posting articles that focus on the intersection of pop culture and personal development. I hope you’ll find something of interest and some food for thought while enjoying a bit of a different take on games, movies, comics, television and more.